TEMPE, Ariz. (AP) - Arizona health officials on Thursday backed down from their decision to abruptly end COVID-19 modeling by a group of university researchers following a backlash that received national attention.
The researchers will maintain access to health data, which the department had asked the researchers to return, Department of Health Services spokesman Chris Minnick said.
The researchers from Arizona State University and University of Arizona developed one of several models that state health officials have used to project the need for hospital beds and ventilators, as well as the effects of social distancing requirements meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Their projections, while highly uncertain, predicted the first peak in hospital demand would arrive in late May, which is later than other publicly available models have shown.
The researchers were notified in a Monday night email that their work was being placed on “pause” and that the health department would “pull back the special data sets” they’d used for the model. The email came hours after Gov. Doug Ducey announced he would allow barbers and salons to reopen on Friday and restaurants to open their dining rooms on Monday.
The email did not offer an explanation but attributed the decision to “Department leadership.” Under fire, the agency said the team was put together to develop a model that was delivered on April 20, and the agency had shifted its focus away from predictive models. State officials have said they prefer to use a model developed for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which they say they can’t share publicly.
On Thursday, Minnick said the agency put the modeling on hold until they were needed to model the impacts of flu season later this year.
“Since then, the Universities and team members have expressed a willingness to continue doing this work,” Minnick said in a statement. “We are grateful for their dedication and we look forward to an ongoing partnership.”
The decision to stop the modeling team’s work drew criticism from Democratic lawmakers and public health officials.
“The Governor’s choice to disregard the science that should be the basis of Arizona public health policies — and the White House’s guidelines for re-opening — is concerning and disappointing,” U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema said in a statement on Wednesday.
Arizona State University said before the team was reinstated that its researchers would continue developing models and releasing them to the public.
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